23: School Visits 101: Who are the Students?
with Rae De Vine
Who are the students? This is going to be something that you will discover in the process of your workshop, of your class. But it's also something that you can start asking questions about to the teacher prior to your first visit.
Some of the questions that I always like to find out as a teaching artist and when I've managed teaching artist is how many students are in your class? What subject do you teach? Where are their connections to my art form and the subject being taught in the class?
What is the demographic makeup of your students? I think especially in a city like New York, where I've done a lot of teaching artistry, you might have multiple languages spoken, first generation, native New Yorkers, born and bred, and all of that is information and will also influence the way you teach and the pacing. For example, when I've gone to a school and I know that there are multiple English language learners in the classroom, I ask what the languages are to see if any of them are ones that I myself speak or are familiar with, because then I'm going to very intentionally incorporate languages, or incorporate words from those languages, into my presentation or into my intro. Or I might even take an opportunity to ask somebody to translate for another student, which actually has happened multiple times, and it became a part of the exercise.
Another great thing to take into consideration when you have English language learners, in particular in the classroom, and if you don't speak more than one language yourself, that's fine. Just be especially mindful of the pacing. As someone who speaks three languages and I can fake about five, one thing that I'm always hyper vigilant about when I'm listening to someone speaking in one of my other languages as I'm translating live. If I'm not fluent in it, I have to work extra hard to get every word, and sometimes I might be slower to respond.
So as the person who's speaking, knowing that someone does not have the same native language as you, it would behoove you to speak slower, allow for some pauses and ask clarifying questions. Sometimes you might need to repeat something and just break it down in a, in simpler language, which is not the same thing as dumbing down. I really want to be clear about that. Simplifying something just makes it more accessible. And so if someone's learning a language, their vocabulary may not be as large as someone who's been born and raised speaking a language. It's just that simple.
So use common words that are really easy to find, that are commonly used, maybe even colloquial ones, depending on where you are, and always ask and encourage folks to ask questions. Just even schedule in and factor in time in your lesson plan for questions. When you're timing it out, don't assume that something is only going to take 10 minutes. You want to make sure you're leaving room for interaction, for questions, and even just for discussion that might arise from whatever you're sharing.
Another question I like to ask if this teacher feels comfortable sharing as if there are any special needs of the students that I should be aware of, because sometimes that will influence - similar to when we have language differences - your pacing. Whether you need to pause for a little bit more clarification or if a particular student has an aide assigned to them, they may need a little bit of time to break it down and check in with their student. So you are kind of juggling a lot of things, but a lot of that can be taken care of by allowing space and letting there be pauses.
Why do we ask all of these questions? It's really important to enter a space with respect. We as teaching artists or visiting artists are kind of like the fun aunties who get to come and visit and play with the kids and bring the treats and do the special trip. But the teachers who are there are building community, building trust, teaching these children all school year round, and they are creating a culture and a community. As visitors, we really need to respect that, acknowledge that there's a little bit of privilege in the fact that we can just pop in and then pop back out, and also just recognize that, you know, there's-- there's a preexisting culture here and we're lucky and we're grateful that they've allowed us to come in and share our art.
Now all of this is just things that we do in preparation in how we prepare and how we get ready to make the visit. So that way we can do it intentionally, respectfully, and, you know, just feel like we have as much information as we can and we're ready while also trying to, you know, embrace a little bit of flexibility. Because when you enter into a classroom, which is what I'm going to talk about next, sometimes things can get a little hectic or unexpected things can take place.
So when you enter a classroom, the time of day actually matters. Are you the first period of the day? Are you right after lunch? Are you right before the end of the day? All of this will impact the energy level in the room and it's helpful to know these things so that way you can also manage your expectations. One of the best pieces of advice I ever received when I was training to be a teaching artist was to not take personally some of the body language in the room.
Especially when you're teaching early in the morning at like 7:30, 8:00 in the morning, you may have left much earlier to arrive at your destination, and some of these kids have been up for just as long as you have or even longer. When you see a child's head that's on the desk, I don't automatically assume that it's disrespectful. That child could be hungry, that child could be tired, that child could have just, you know, have a job after school, and they stayed up late and they're just exhausted, and it's the first period of the day, and, you know, maybe they dozed off for a second.
When it comes to teaching and when it comes to young people in general, I don't believe in lazy and I don't believe in bad. What I do believe in is tired, stressed out, depressed, hungry, confused… Maybe there's a learning need that hasn't been addressed and so that child is just kind of turning in on themselves. I try to assume the best and extend the benefit of the doubt to who's ever in the room. And I never try to make people leave the room based on any preconceived assumptions that I might have. Because you, you come into these rooms with all of your experience and your beliefs, and you're entering into a community where they also have experience and beliefs. It's really important to also kind of take the temperature of the room.
So this is going to bring us to one of my favorite things, some of my favorite icebreakers…